Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Judges 16:13

And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

13. If thou weavest the seven locks web ] plaits warp. Weaving was the work of women as well as of men; see the illustration from the Egyptian tombs at Beni Hasan dating from the Middle Kingdom, Benzinger, Hebr. Archol. 2 , p. 151; Dellah has a loom in her house. This was a horizontal loom fastened into the ground, as in the illustration referred to 1 [56]

[56] It looks as if it were upright; but this is due to the absence of perspective in Egyptian drawing.

; hence it would be easy to weave the hair of a person lying asleep upon the floor into the warp, i.e. the horizontal threads which are intersected at right angles by the weft, in this case Samson’s hair. To form the web, i.e. the woven cloth, a further operation is necessary, the beating up of the weft with a flat rod or batten, here rendered pin ( Jdg 16:14); the word usually means peg, esp. a tent-peg (see Jdg 5:26 mg.), but that it could also be used of a flat stick appears from Deu 23:13 ( paddle or spade).

The sentences needed to complete Jdg 16:13 and to provide the proper beginning of Jdg 16:14 have accidentally fallen out. With the help of the Greek versions the gap may be filled thus: “If thou weavest the seven plaits of my head with the warp, and beatest them up with the batten, then shall I become weak and be as any other man. So she made him sleep, and wove the seven plaits of his head with the warp, and beat them up with the batten.” It will be noticed that the existing text and the restored text both end in the same way. The eye of the copyist passed from the first with the warp to the second, and overlooked the intervening lines: a good instance of the source of textual mistakes known as homoioteleuton. The seven locks may have something to do with solar mythology. The Babyl. Gilgmesh had seven locks; in later Greek art Helios is usually represented with the same number.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 13. The seven locks of my head] Probably Samson had his long hair plaited into seven divisions, and as his vow of a Nazarite obliged him to wear his hair, so, seven being a number of perfection among the Hebrews, his hair being divided into seven locks might more particularly point out the perfection designed by his Nazarite state.

Every person must see that this verse ends abruptly, and does not contain a full sense. Houbigant has particularly noticed this, and corrected the text from the Septuagint, the reading of which I shall here subjoin:

, , , , , ;

“If thou shalt weave the seven locks of my head with the web, and shalt fasten them with the pin in the wall, I shall become weak like other men: And so it was that, when he slept, Dalida took the seven locks of his head, and wove them with the web, and fastened it with the pin to the wall and said unto him,” c.

All the words printed here in italic, are wanting in the present Hebrew copies but are preserved in the Septuagint, and are most obviously necessary to complete the sense; else Delilah appears to do something that she is not ordered to do, and to omit what she was commanded.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Or, thread which is woven about a weavers loom; or,

with a weavers beam. If my hair, which is all divided into seven locks, be fastened about a weavers beam, or interwoven with weavers threads; understand out of the foregoing verses, then I shall be weak as another man.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

13. If thou weavest the seven locksof my headbraids or tresses, into which, like many in theEast, he chose to plait his hair. Working at the loom was a femaleemployment; and Delilah’s appears to have been close at hand. It wasof a very simple construction; the woof was driven into the warp, notby a reed, but by a wooden spatula. The extremity of the web wasfastened to a pin or stake fixed in the wall or ground; and whileDelilah sat squatting at her loom, Samson lay stretched on the floor,with his head reclining on her lapa position very common in theEast.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And Delilah said unto Samson,…. At another time, when she thought it most proper to upbraid him with his deception of her:

hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies; both the times that she had solicited him to impart the secret of his strength to her:

tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound; tell me the real truth, and deceive me no more:

and he said unto her, if thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web; it seems that Samson’s hair was parted into seven locks, which no doubt hung down very long; and now he tells her, that if these were interwoven with the warp which was upon the beam in a loom near by; perhaps in the same room, where Delilah used to weave, as was the custom of those times, and in various nations a; his strength would be weakened; for Braunius b is mistaken in supposing this to be the beam about which the web was rolled, as he is also in the pin next mentioned, which he takes to be the “spatha”, or lathe, with which the threads are knocked together.

a “Arguto conjux”, &c. Virgil. Georgie. l. 1. v. 294. So Penelope in Homer, Minerva & Arachne in Ovid. Metamorph. l. 6. fab. 1. v. 55, &c. Vid. Pignorium de servis, p. 418. Braunium de Vest. Sacerd. Hebr. l. 1. c. 17. sect. 33. b “De Vest”. Sacerd. Hebr. l. 1. c. 16. sect. 8.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(13) If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.The illustrious and sunny locks of the Nazarite did not, as Milton imagines, lie waving and curling about his god-like shoulders, but were plaited into seven locks. The word for locksmachelephothoccurs here only. The LXX. render it curls (bostruchous) and seiras, which appears to mean plaits, like the Greek plokamous. The word for web is a technical word, and perhaps means warp. The LXX. and the Vulg. add, and drive them with the peg into the wall, which is implied in the next verse. With almost incredible levity and folly, Samson here goes to the very verge of the true secret, and suffers his sacred hair to be woven in a harlots loom. (Tertio de mysterio deprompsit jam lapsuro propior. St. Ambrose.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

13. The seven locks He probably wore his long Nazarite hair in seven braids or flowing tresses.

If thou weavest with the web The meaning is, that she should weave his seven braids of hair fast into the warp of the cloth which was upon her loom. “This time,” says Kitto, “he approached dangerously near his great secret. His infatuation was like that of the moth, approaching gradually nearer and nearer to the flame which destroys it at last. This device was suggested by the presence of the small loom in which the women of these days wove their household stuffs a kind of industry from which it would seem that females even of Delilah’s stamp did not hold themselves exempt. These looms, as shown in Egyptian sculptures, and as still subsisting in the East, are very simple and comparatively light, and must by no means be confounded with the ponderous apparatus of our own hand-loom weavers.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jdg 16:13 a

‘And Delilah said to Samson, “Up to now you have made fun of me and told me untruths. Tell me in what way you might be bound.” ’

These words were no doubt hidden in much love play and tender caressing, and said with gentle chiding as from one amused by her lover’s jesting. But underneath she was deadly serious.

Jdg 16:13 b

‘And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the warp threads.” ’

This was either put as a very pithy answer or, as is more likely in the light of verse 14, for it does not seem to make sense on its own (unless it was a technical description using technical words whos emeaning was lost prior to the LXX translation), some letters may have dropped out of the text in copying. LXX has a much longer version, probably based on a Hebrew text, ‘if you weave the seven locks of my head with the warp threads, and fasten them up to the beam with the pin, then I will be weak like other men.’ The idea would seem to be that she would need to use her loom to weave his hair together with the warp threads of the loom and then pin it to the beam of the loom.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jdg 16:13-14. If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web The LXX render the passage thus: If thou shalt weave the locks of my head, and shalt fasten them with a pin in the wall, I shall be deprived of my strength, and become like other men, Jdg 16:14. When he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head which she wove into a web, and fastened it with a pin to the wall. Then she cried, &c. See Spencer de Leg. Heb. lib. 3: cap. 6. Dissert. I.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Jdg 16:13 And Delilah said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the seven locks of my head with the web.

Ver. 13. And told me lies. ] See Jdg 16:10 .

The seven locks of my head. ] Here he came nearer the business than before; till at length she had his whole heart out. Well might Terence call harlots Cruces.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)